It's interesting thinking about that kind of statistic when applied to someone that's not in-danger themselves and is under the scrutiny of someone that expects on-the-job performance who's also not in-danger themselves but isn't obligated to push the button to kill. I expect it's actually easier to justify, in the stress of a firefight, not taking life as it can be blamed on the stressful situation, compared to being in an environment without that kind of external stress.

Maybe it would make sense to shorten their shifts an hour or a half-hour and mandate that they either go work-out, or go to the pistol range and get in some target practice, or something else to help the nerves a bit that doesn't involve killing people.

Soldiers are supposed to be trained to follow orders and that there are consequences for not following those orders. Sure, some will disobey orders, but if there are penalties for being caught or for the ramifications of unauthorized use then it would probably work better than in prisons.

The USSR didn't decide what was allowed to be sold, they decided what was allowed to be produced. On top of that all developed nations, be they first-world or second-world, ban things that they feel are harmful to the public. If our government had the balls for it they'd ban high fructose corn syrup instead of cup sizes, but they don't, so local governments do what they can for public health.

Haven't you noticed, that when one country invades another, that usually disparate groups with a degree of nationalism end up banding together at least temporarily to combat the invading agressor?

Beause it happened in Afghanistan and Iraq too, and that's even with our statements that we didn't want to permanently take territory either.

Couldn't banning personal electronics capable of live network communication help and picture taking help? Seems like it would make sense for the military to proactively come up with ways to allow its members to still have the connection to home through social media, but in ways that make it less unsafe for units. Hell, set up a 'selfie stand' or some designated area for soldiers to have their pictures taken that won't compromise operational security, and use cameras that don't take location data, so that pictures are safe and can't be used for targeting coordinates...

US forces have had problems with this too, and not just the Geraldo Rivera incident. If I remember right there was a soldier or airman that took a selfie with some cool helicopters or something that had landed at his Iraqi base, and insurgents started shelling when they realized what was there. Admittedly these aircraft were out in the open exposed so it's still possible that they'd have been seen and targeted anyway, but the particular method through which their presence was initially identified was the photo.

Mind you, I don't think that the US has very many instances of this happening, but it's not without precedent. I'd argue it's just another form of, "loose lips sink ships."

I have no problem with her taking it. She paid for it. I imagine that had she not contributed to it and not been eligible to receive it, she still would have been broke, and probably not significantly later than when she went on the dole.

I think it's hilarious when people with slightly different opinions compared to the vast spectrum of positions available argue that the other's position is so incredibly different from their own. None of us want to live in Somalia or in North Korea, where the state effectively doesn't exist or where the state maintains absolute control. We all want the state to do things as an organization, and the very slight differences between what we all want are so small that getting this butt-hurt about them is just stupid.

Ayn Rand herself spent her final years on government assistance, taking Medicare and Social Security.

We actually make a habit of saving our bacon fat when possible, it actually saves well for cooking more than once and it is so tasty. Only downside really is that some of our friends are of religions (Jewish, Muslim, and Vegan) where it's not allowed, so the little that we do have these friends eat with us we have to switch back to the lesser oils.

My wife has a bachelors in mechanical engineering from MIT and works in a field that uses her degree. She has told me that she's tired of hearing "STEM" as it always seems to come from people that do not hold any degree in the hard sciences, or in technology, or in engineering, or in mathematics. If they want to push for people to get degrees in these fields, then they should put their money, time, and energy where their mouth is and go back and get a degree from among those kinds, then start advocating for it once they really know what they're advocating for.

That's part of the trouble, analogs that don't completely apply, combined with allegations that can't be proven.

Every so many months there are fairly high-profile rape or other sexual abuse violations in the news. A common thread in most of these situations is that they lack proof, and usually it's due to action or inaction on the part of the accuser. Some cases find the accuser's actions like bathing or waiting too long to have destroyed physical evidence, and other cases find documentation showing the accuser continuing to pursue friendship or sexual contact with the accused, and these are in places where the law doesn't place a legal distinction in one partner following another partner's directions or mandates before the consensual act happens. Sweden's rules that allow partners to define the conditions under which one partner consents that are binding but not documented before the act itself make it very difficult to determine what actually happened, and as in other high profile cases it sounds like there's evidence of continued contact after the act that was eventually the basis of the complaint.

If I understand the law where I live, once the choice to commence sexual intercourse is made, so long as the acts themselves are, "natural," there is no legal basis for conditional consent based on the use of contraception or lack thereof by one party or the other. The act itself is assumed to carry the responsibility that it could lead to pregnancy or other undesired ramifications even if contraception or other forms of protection are employed as that is the point of sex to begin with, so the responsibility to use protection is borne by each individual in the act for themselves, rather than on the other person, and that the ramifications for the act are strictly personal outside of the realm of conception and shared responsibility to any offspring. In short, anyone that voluntarily engages in natural sexual congress is strictly responsible for themselves and for any progeny as a result, and that the other person, within certain bounds (like your reference to knowingly lying about some fatal infectious diseases) is not responsible for the other person's well-being.

Assange might be a horrible person, convincing women to have riskier sex with him than they otherwise would normally agree to, but between the difficult nature of quantifying responsibility in an otherwise consensual sexual encounter and a lack of definitive evidence that the offense actually occurred coupled with contrary evidence that indicates a cordial relationship post-act, it's difficult to understand how there's enough to make an international case of it. After all, history is full of charismatic seducers that convinced others to have sex with them despite their original antipathy without labeling the act as a form of rape or other illegal sexual act. Calling Assange's act criminal should mean that the act of women intentionally ceasing the use of birth control to get pregnant without communicating with their partners is also criminal. It's not wise to define either that way though, and since there isn't a way to prove allegations without an admission, it makes more sense to leave the burden of responsibility on each person, for themselves, when they agree to commence the act itself.

This is going to be interesting to watch. If I understand the nature of the criminal complaint, there's a class of sexual crime that does not exist in the UK that he stands accused of in Sweden, and that this whole mess is going to be a giant can of worms.

I wonder if there are any statutes of limitations in Sweden that the authorities, in a failure to interview someone that has been open to it on foreign soil, would run up against if they didn't interview him, which would basically void the ability to prosecute (and to seek extradition) if they don't take this step.

It feels like we just adopted Windows 7 and then Windows 8/8.1 on more portable devices; I doubt that we'll want to turn around and redo high-five-figures worth of devices again when we just got done.

I know. Sometimes ridiculousness needs to be pointed out though, and it's not like I'm picking on something that is outside of the control of the individuals I'm lampooning.